The Insiders (5 page)

Gloria sat up, her eyes gleaming.

"Baby, of course it matters! You know how I am till I'm sure I have a new man all tame and on a leash. David isn't, and he won't be as long as he's still jealous of Eve. So we'll see how he reacts to the picture."

"She certainly has a lovely body. A shame she didn't prove more cooperative, or I'd have enjoyed a sample of her charms myself."

"Which way, baby—doing or
watching
?" Gloria waved her hand impatiently to signal that he needn't answer. "It doesn't matter. In spite of her job, Eve Mason is too naive to hold a man like David. The way she kept begging him to listen to her, to
understand,
made me sick. How could David continue to want her?"

"Maybe she has something you're not able to recognize, my dearest. Maybe she was flattering to his ego. Have you stopped to think that he might actually be in love with her?"

"That's it—she flattered his ego. David's not in love with her; David's not the type. I think he's going to be hard as nails when he finally grows up. Like you, Howie. And like me. But as it is, I don't like competing with dear Eve's ghost."

Watching her over his martini, Howard said dryly, "I can hardly see
you
having to compete with anyone, Gloria. Ghost or not. There are very few men who can resist you. Why bother with David? Wait until he grows up, as you put it, and then sample him."

"I hate waiting for anything—you know that. And in a few weeks I'll be tired of David. He'll be all yours then."

Howard raised his eyebrows.

"Gloria, my love, you know I never play with the hired help. Besides, David is a damned good attorney. As you so perceptively remarked, he's going to end up with no illusions, like the rest of us, and then he'll make an even better lawyer. So when you're through with him, don't be too hard. Try to part friends with him; it'll make everything much easier."

"Darling, your advice, as always, is excellent, and I'll take it." Gloria had finished her drink, and now she put the glass down on the table decisively. "However— there's
now.
Would you mind if I dragged David away from the office a little early and took him down to the house? I feel like a swim."

"Go
ahead. But sweetheart, if you plan on doing your lovemaking outdoors, be sure the servants aren't around, hmm? I'll try to come down myself, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it or not—I have to meet with Senator Tidwell in about a half hour."

Gloria's smile was mischievous.

"Don't forget the binoculars, darling, in case you do come down in time for the fun."

After she had left, Hansen let a slight smile come to his lips. How well he and Gloria understood each other! He was lucky to have found a mistress who was as understanding as she was.

Gloria stood in her own office looking out of the window, and now she was not smiling. She was thinking about David Zimmer, who had made the mistake of being hard to get. If he had shown himself aware of her initial, exploratory flirtation with him, she would probably have forgotten all about him by now. But he had
pretended
—and when she'd asked him down to Howard's big country house for a weekend house party, he had asked if he could bring his girl friend along. Stupid David! Or was it clever David? Had he played hard-to-get on purpose, to intrigue her?

Gloria had a devious mind; Howard had often said so. Devious or not, she was usually pretty good at figuring other people out and finding their weaknesses. It had been her spur-of-the-minute idea to have David and Eve allotted different rooms, and then to have Archer go to Eve, playing drunk. Everyone switched partners at the weekend house parties. Everyone knew this except the two newcomers—David and Eve Mason, his date.

As Gloria had hopefully anticipated, Eve had not put up a fight at all, until she had suddenly realized that the man in her bed wasn't David. And then all she had done was whisper to Archer to get out, she was the wrong girl. But by this time Archer, who wasn't a slow worker by any means, wasn't about to stop what he was doing. And it was this pretty scene that David had walked in on....

He was supposed to act sophisticated about it, shrug his shoulders, and go off with Gloria, who was standing right beside him. She wouldn't really have minded if they could have joined them on the same bed. But David had flown into a rage and had made a terrible scene. In the end Archer had had to take Eve home, and although Gloria did succeed in luring David to her bed after he had had far too much to drink, the party had turned out to be something of a fiasco. And David, drunk, hadn't been very good in the sack, either.

Well, she was going to give him a second chance, which was more than he deserved—more than she gave most men. But Gloria had a kind of sixth sense about men, and this feeling told her David could be very good if he was really trying—very exciting. So, lucky David— today she'd give him a chance to seduce her. Impatiently, Gloria waited for him to return.

When David Zimmer arrived
in his office after a late lunch that hot afternoon, the first thing he noticed was the latest copy of
Stud
magazine lying in the center of his desk.

Frowning, David rang for Stella on the intercom. Her voice came over from the next room, quiet, ladylike.

"Yes, Mr. Zimmer."

"Stel, did you happen to leave a magazine lying on my desk?"

"Why, no, Mr. Zimmer, I didn't."

"Well, has anyone been in here since I went out to lunch?"

There was an almost imperceptible pause at the other end. Then Stella's voice said primly, "Gloria Reardon was here. With a memo from Mr. Hansen."

In spite of his annoyance, David repressed a half-smile. None of the other secretaries knew quite how to refer to Gloria, who was Howard Hansen's mistress as well as his "administrative assistant."

"Thanks, Stella."

David sat down before he reached for the magazine. If Gloria had left it here for him, that meant there was something in it that Gloria wanted him to see. "Bitch" was a word that described beautiful blond Gloria perfectly; and already, even before he started flipping through the pages of the magazine, David half-suspected what Gloria meant him to discover.

In spite of his lunch and the two martinis that had preceded it, he started to get a hollow feeling in his stomach. Eve wouldn't—she couldn't have, not even to spite him! But she had, and, mixed with his rising anger, David could not help the unwitting, unwilling tightness in his loins.

She had a four-page spread and the centerfold. The title was "The Many Faces of Eve," photography and story by Tom Catt.

"It took a challenge thrown at her to persuade Miss Eve Mason, San Francisco's loveliest answer to Barbara Walters, to pose for this magazine. Eve, an ex-model who has never agreed to pose for so much as a lingerie shot before, was stung when we suggested to her that all models are toothpick-thin and would never qualify to make the pages of this particular magazine...."

There was more, but David didn't want to read it. He looked at the pictures, shots of Eve from various angles and in various outfits. Making a TV commercial, Eve working—looking very businesslike—Eve and her roommate Marti fixing supper in their apartment, Eve at the opera on the arm of a pompous old man with a potbelly. Curled up with a book, reading—her face devoid of makeup but still flawlessly beautiful.

His fingers shook when he came to the centerfold. Unlike most of them, this one could almost qualify as a work of art. Tom Catt, alias Jerry Harmon, alias the "Body Merchant," had really outdone himself with this picture.

A waterfall in the background, a real one, with its spray creating a misty effect. Shrubs in the foreground, wet green leaves. And Eve. Half-smiling, minute drops of water standing out on her body to give it a sheen (how could he not remember how the perspiration looked just so after they had made love?), the leaves barely covering her. No mistaking that this model, at least, had a real figure. "I'm one of the fortunate few who photograph skinny, darling," she had told him once.

The pain in his groin was almost unbearable, but then, so was his anger—a rage intense and primitive.

How dare she? How dare she do this, knowing how he felt about the kind of woman who would put her body on exhibition for everyone to see?

He raged at her silently, fists clenched. Hypocritical, lying bitch! All those tears she had shed, begging him not to leave her—all those times she had told him how much she loved him, that he was the only man she had ever loved, could ever let love her again ...

The telephone rang, startling him. He knew it was Gloria and didn't want to answer it, knowing all the same that he had to. It was the direct "hot fine" from Howard Hansen's office, and Howard was the senior partner of Hansen, Howell, & Bernstein, attorneys-at- law—"H. H. & B." as they were known in the city. Mostly, only Gloria would call him, but sometimes it would be Howard. It rang again, insistently, and David picked it up, taking a deep breath before he did.

"Darling, did you get your thrill for the afternoon? Now I
know
why you were so hard to get. Quite a body under those skinny-look dresses!"

"All right, Gloria. You know damn well Eve and I are all washed up. I couldn't care less if she went in for porno movies next. If it's advertising she needs, I could provide that, for that matter." He caught himself, realizing he'd let his irritation show through.

Gloria chuckled; it always gave her a kick to needle someone.

"You must tell me
all
about it, lover. When you're through making noises like a jealous boyfriend, that is."

The phone clicked in his ear as she hung up.

In spite of himself, David went back to
Stud
and the feature story on Eve. Of course, he knew why she had done it. To make him mad—to make him realize what he was missing. Eve wouldn't have done it except to spite him. She was a bitch all the same, and he longed to tell her that.

Somehow, he knew that right now, right this minute, she was thinking about him. Feeling the same way he did. "Our damned ESP," she used to call it.

Without stopping to think, not
wanting
to consider what he was doing, David dialed Eve's number. Of course, she wouldn't be home. She worked hard all day— hadn't she told him that often enough?

He heard two empty rings then hung up, disgusted at himself for his own weakness. Why couldn't he forget about her, let her be? It didn't matter to her whom she went to bed with—man or woman. When poor, unhappy Stella had told him about Eve and Marti, he had not wanted to believe it, but when he'd seen Eve with that other man, a
stranger,
he'd felt sick to his stomach. Why did just her picture give him a hard-on?

There were letters on his desk that had to be answered, a brief he should be reading through. But David didn't feel like working this afternoon. Why not, he could almost
hear
himself think, why not Gloria? At least she wanted him and made no bones about it. And he still had something to prove where Gloria was concerned. ...

He picked up the telephone and called her extension.

Gloria's body was beautiful, almost perfect, except for the overlarge breasts. But they were high and firm, and very lovely—sexy, too, with the shiny drops of water standing out against the slight oiliness left on her skin by the tanning lotion she had used.

David's anger made him almost aggressive. Gloria wanted him—she had certainly been obvious about letting him know it. Why in hell should he hesitate, waste time?

He put his hand out and touched a breast, and she didn't move. Then, very deliberately, he lifted it out of the barely confining bikini top and bent his head, his tongue stabbing greedily against Gloria's already hardened nipple.

"Ohh, baby, yes!" her voice breathed as she turned against him and the other breast came loose, too, pressing against his bare chest while their hands fumbled at wet swimsuit bottoms.

She was easier to reach than he, and she was ready for him. He pushed her backward and down, uncaring now that they were right out in the open where anyone might surprise them. His fingers explored her, gauging her readiness before he plunged into her and felt her tighten wetly on him—swallowing, sucking him inside her.

The sun gleamed off her blond hair, reflected off each individual golden piece of fuzzy down on her body that proclaimed proudly she was a natural blonde. She was lying half on and half off the pad she had been sunbathing on, her head back, her eyes closed against the blinding brilliance of the afternoon sun.

"That's the way, lover—that's the way!"

Her legs clamped around him, and he felt her fingers digging into his buttocks, pulling on him, grabbing at him. She was a big golden-haired bitch squirming under him, wanting it, grabbing for it. A bitch like every other woman—like Eve—only Eve was more of a bitch, a lying hypocrite. What or who did they think about when they got screwed, the bitch-women?

Gloria's eyes were still closed, but her half-open mouth emitted sounds of pleasure and words that spurred him on. Gloria knew
all
the words; she was taking him on a mad, wild ride on her bucking, writhing body. He got one hand underneath her and rammed a finger up her ass, enjoying her yelp of pleasure and the way she came up to meet him with new fervor.

All right, bitch, he kept thinking, all right, then, get it, grab yourself one, and hurry, damn you, hurry, because I'm going to shoot my load all the way inside you any moment now!

Out loud, his voice prodded at her, urging her, "Come and get it, get fucked, baby," and she started to moan, and then she was saying, "Yes—God, yes!" and the last "yes" was a kind of scream.

He felt her start to contract convulsively around him, and that did it for him, too; there was no holding back now, and he had to let it go, to let the explosion of himself happen—the eruption into warm, tight, woman-cunt, not caring who or what the woman was; and it didn't even matter that his hands were hurting her and his mouth was bruising hers; she was taking it, wanting it, screaming for it.

"That was
very
good, lover," she said minutes later, her voice sounding only slightly breathless. "But get off me now, there's a good boy. I'm finding it hard to breathe, and besides, someone might come."

"That's a good one! All of a sudden you start to think about someone surprising us. 'Someone might come'!" he mimicked her cruelly, but at the same time, he did as she demanded—rolled off her body and reached for a cigarette before he reached for his swimming trunks.

Gloria, unlike Eve, ignored his sulks. Carefully, and quite daintily, she was slipping her bikini back on, fussing with the top.

"After
that,
I could use a drink. I'll ring for Hill, shall
I?"

She pressed the bell-button that was set into the low table beside the pad where they now lay again, quite decorously.

Against his will, David was impressed by Gloria's coolness and the composure of her manner. Who would guess, looking at her now, that she'd just fucked like a great golden beast? Their eyes met for an instant, and she chuckled, a throaty, sexy sound.

"Don't try to figure me out, David, darling. It's a waste of time. I've tried analysis for a whole year, and even my analyst couldn't figure me out for sure—no one can!"

"Not even Howard?" he said spitefully, unable to help himself.

She chuckled again. "Especially not Howard, although he tries the hardest. He does come the closest to understanding me, though. In fact, he's
very
understanding. He knows little Gloria needs her fun—and variety, too. He doesn't mind, as long as I screw him, too, as often as he needs it."

Gloria slipped on her sunglasses and lay back on the pad.

"Tell Hill I'd like a long, cool daiquiri, would you, lover? I think I'll catch some shut-eye until he gets back with the drinks. I certainly
do
feel very good and relaxed. You perform much better when you're not too drunk, darling. Do remember."

He had to bite his tongue to keep from saying something that would have sounded spiteful. Damn her barbed tongue, and damn the way she thought she could just turn him on and off like a fucking robot built for her pleasure. He'd have to teach her different—Gloria could learn, too.

He saw Hill walking toward them, his white duck trousers reflecting the sunlight, and tried to appear as relaxed and nonchalant as Gloria did.

Quite unbidden, the thought of Eve came into his mind. The last time he'd been down here, Eve had come with him. Suddenly, he wished that she were lying beside him now.